County Donegal

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County Donegal (Irish: Contae Dhún na nGall) is a county located in the west of the Province of Ulster in the northwest of Ireland. It is one of three counties in the Province of Ulster that does not form part of Northern Ireland. County Donegal is the largest county in Ulster. The name "Donegal" comes from the Irish, meaning "the fort of the foreigners". The county was named after the former administrative centre of Donegal Town. When first created, it was sometimes referred to as County Tyrconnel (Irish: Tír Chonaill), after the Tyrconnel earldom it succeeded. Calling the whole county Tír Conaill is technically incorrect as the Inishowen peninsula (Irish: Inis Eoghain) was historically distinct from Tír Chonaill.

Uniquely, Donegal shares a border with only one county in the Republic of Ireland, County Leitrim in north Connacht. The rest of its land border is shared with the United Kingdom (the Northern Irish counties of Londonderry, Tyrone and Fermanagh). This apparent isolation has led to Donegal people and their customs being considered distinct from the rest of the country and has been used to market the county with the slogan Up here it's different.[1] As regards it's culture and traditions, County Donegal has much more in common with Northern Ireland than it does with the rest of the Republic of Ireland. The people of Donegal are famous for their 'accent' (or more correctly accents), which is very much an Ulster accent. Despite Lifford being the county town (and there also being a Donegal town), the largest town is Letterkenny, which is quite possibly the fastest growing town in all of Ulster.

Geography

Slieve League cliffs.

Physically, the county is by far the most rugged and mountainous in Ulster. The county consists chiefly of low mountains, with a deeply indented coastline forming natural loughs, of which Lough Swilly is the most notable. The famous mountains or Hills of Donegal consist of two major ranges, the Derryveagh Mountains in the north and the Bluestack Mountains in the south, with Mount Errigal at 749 metres the highest peak. The Slieve League cliffs are the second highest sea cliffs in Europe, while Donegal's Malin Head is the most northerly point on the island of Ireland.

The climate is temperate and dominated by the Gulf Stream, with cool damp summers and mild wet winters. Two permanently inhabited islands, Arranmore and Tory Island lie off the coast, along with a large number of islands with only transient inhabitants. Ireland's second longest river, the Erne, enters Donegal Bay near the town of Ballyshannon. The River Erne, along with other Donegal waterways, has been dammed to produce hydroelectric power.

An extensive rail network used to exist through out the county and was operated by the County Donegal Railways Joint Committee and the Londonderry and Lough Swilly Railway Company. Even though the railways in Donegal are fondly remembered, the network was completely closed by 1960. Today, the closest railway station to the county is Waterside Station in the City of Derry, which is operated by Northern Ireland Railways (N.I.R.). County Donegal is served by both Donegal Airport at Carrickfinn in The Rosses in the west of the county and by City of Derry Airport at Eglinton in the east. The nearest main international airport to the county is Belfast International Airport (popularly called Aldergrove Airport), which is located to the east at Aldergrove, near Antrim Town, in County Antrim.

Culture and heritage

The Iron Age fortress Grianan an Aileach situated in County Donegal.

The variant of the Irish language spoken in Donegal is distinctive, and shares traits with Scottish Gaelic. The Irish spoken in the Donegal Gaeltacht (Irish speaking area) is of the West Ulster dialect, while Inishowen, which became English-speaking only in the early 20th century, used the East Ulster dialect. Scots is still spoken to a degree in the Laggan district of east Donegal.

Donegal Irish has a strong influence on Irish speakers across Ulster, who find themselves speaking a dialect noticeably different from the Irish most commonly spoken and understood in Dublin.

Like other areas of western Ireland, Donegal has a distinctive fiddle tradition which is of world renown. Donegal is also well known for its songs which have, like the instrumental music, a distinctive sound. Donegal musical artists such as the bands Clannad and Altan and solo artist Enya, all from Gaoth Dobhair, have had international success with traditional or traditional flavoured music. Donegal music has also influenced people not originally from the county including folk and pop singer Paul Brady. Popular music is also common, the county's most famous rock artist being the Ballyshannon born Rory Gallagher.

Mount Errigal sits over Gweedore and the Rosses.

Donegal has a long literary tradition in both Irish and English. The famous Irish Navvy-turned novelist Patrick MacGill, author of many books about the experiences of Irish migrant itinerant labourers in Britain at around the turn of the 20th century, such as The Rat Pit and the autobiographical Children of the Dead End, is from the Glenties area. There is a literary summer school in Glenties named in his honour. The Republican and novelist Peadar O'Donnell hails from The Rosses in west Donegal.

Modern exponents include the Inishowen playwright and poet Frank McGuinness and the playwright Brian Friel. Many of Friel's plays are set in the fictional Donegal town of Ballybeg.

Authors in Donegal have been creating works, like the Annals of the Four Masters, in Gaelic and Latin since the Early Middle Ages. In modern Irish Donegal has produced famous, and sometimes controversial, authors such as the brothers Séamus Ó Grianna and Seosamh Mac Grianna from The Rosses and the contemporary Irish-language poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh from Gortahork, and where he is known to locals as Gúrú na gcnoc ("the guru of the hills").

In addition to its Gaelic culture, Donegal has also had a significant Protestant presence, being the most Protestant county in the Republic of Ireland - a community with many links and similiaries to their Northern Ireland correligionists and whose history dates to Scottish and English settlement during the 17th century plantation of Ulster.[2]. With its complex mix of cultures, Donegal could be seen as a microcosm for the Island of Ireland as a whole.

Donegal has also contributed to culture elsewhere. One Donegal native, Francis Alison, was one of the founders of the College of Philadelphia, which would later become the University of Pennsylvania.[3]

Politics

Map of Donegal.

Donegal County Council has responsibility for local administration, running alongside Town Councils in Letterkenny, Bundoran, Ballyshannon and Buncrana. Both the County Council and Town Councils have elections every five years (alongside local elections nationally, and elections to the European Parliament), the last of which took place on the 11 June 2004. Twenty nine councillors are elected using the system of Proportional Representation, across five electoral areas (Inishowen, Letterkenny, Donegal, Stranorlar, Glenties and Milford). Donegal County Council's main offices are located in the County House in Lifford, but regional offices are located in Carndonagh, Milford, Letterkenny, Dungloe and Donegal.

For general (national) elections, the county is divided into two constituencies, Donegal South West and Donegal North East, with both having three representatives in Dáil Éireann. For elections to the European Parliament, the county is part of the Ireland North-West constituency (formerly Connacht-Ulster).

Sport

The Gaelic Athletic Association sport of Gaelic football is popular in Donegal, as is soccer — association football. Hurling is not such a big sport in the North-West of Ireland. Donegal's Gaelic football team have won the All-Ireland title once (in 1992), and in 2007 Donegal won only their second national title by winning the national football league, but the hurling team has never managed a title. There are 16 senior GAA Clubs in county Donegal.[4]

Football

Finn Harps play in the Football League of Ireland and won promotion to the Premier League in 2007 following a 6-3 aggregate win in the playoff final. They are now back alongside their arch-rivals Derry City who they contest the North-West Derby with.. No other Donegal teams have achieved the status of Finn Harps, but football teams abound across the county.

Donegal's rugged landscape lends itself to active sports like climbing, hillwalking, surfing and kite-flying. Many people travel to Donegal for the superb golf links — long sandy beaches and extensive dune systems are a feature of the county, and many links courses have been developed.

Rock climbing is of very high quality and still under-developed in the county. The complete Donegal climbing guidebook is available at the Colmcille Climbers website. There is a wealth of good quality climbs in the county from granite rocks in the south to quartzite and dolerite in the north; from long mountain routes in the Poisoned Glen to boulder challenges of excellent quality in the west and in the Inishowen Peninsula.

Surfing on Donegal's Atlantic coast is considered to be as good as any in Ireland and up there in the world ratings.

Tourism

Glenveagh National Park.

With its sandy beaches, unspoilt boglands and friendly communities Co.Donegal is a favoured destination for many travellers, Irish and foreign alike. One of the county treasures is Glenveagh National Park. The park is a 140 km² nature reserve with spectacular scenery of mountains, raised boglands, lakes and woodlands.

The Donegal Gaeltacht also attract young people to Donegal each year during the school summer holidays. The three week long summer Gaeltacht courses give young Irish people from other parts of the country a chance to learn the Irish language and traditional Irish cultural traditions that are still prevalent in parts of Donegal.

Towns in Donegal

Flora and Fauna

Algae Seaweed: Morton, O. 2003. The marine macroalgae of County Donegal, Ireland. Bull. Ir. Soc. No. 27: 3–164.

People

  • County Donegal was the birthplace of Elizabeth Catherine Ball, the mother of Robert Justice.

See also

Further reading

  • Sean Beattie (2004). Donegal. Sutton: Printing Press. ISBN 0-7509-3825-0.(Ireland in Old Photographs series)
  • Morton, O. 2003. The marine macroalgae of County Donegal, Ireland. Bull. Ir. biogeog.soc 27: 3–164.
  • Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland (Annála Ríoghachta Éireann) by the Four Masters, from the earliest period to the year 1616, compiled during the period 1632–36 by Brother Michael O’Clery, translated and edited by John O'Donovan in 1856, and re-published in 1998 by De Burca, Dublin.
  • Parks, H.M. 1958. A general survey of the marine algae of Mulroy Bay, Co. Donegal. Ir. Nat. J. 12: 277–83.
  • Parks, H.M. 1958. A general survey of the marine algae of Mulroy Bay, Co. Donegal: II Ir. Nat. J. 12: 324–30.

References

  1. ^ Ireland Northwest.
  2. ^ "Census of Ireland 2002".
  3. ^ Who Was Who in America, Historical Volume, 1607-1896. Chicago: Marquis Who's Who. 1963.
  4. ^ Club GAA - Donegal - http://www.clubgaa.ie/donegal/index.htm

External links

Commemorative Biographical of the Counties of Wayne and Holmes, Ohio 1889

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